


A Tasty World

by ix_tab



Category: Cornelius Quartet - Michael Moorcock
Genre: Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ix_tab/pseuds/ix_tab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jerry Cornelius lives forever in a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. He's ok with this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tasty World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hangingfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/gifts).



> This story was born from the ashes of two of my older drabbles. It has become greater then the sum of its parts. Thank you to my beta, you know who you are!
> 
> The archive's warnings weren't specific enough, but this story contains mentions of drug use, consensual incest, violence and death, some of it permanent.

 

Drugs take their toll on Fran, considers Jerry Cornelius. In whatever guise he chooses, the chemicals singing songs in his brother's head win over sanity. Frank dances in rags, in posh clothes nicked off the back of drunks, in his own wrinkled graying skin.

 

Part of Jerry still loves his brother. Most of him wants to kill him again. There are only so many times he can do that before it gets old.

Frank's lips, Frank's body are falling apart, but Jerry doesn't mind. He'll still suck Frank's soul away one day. They’d both survive the experience. Besides, the English Assassin has better things to do with his lives than worry about some old dyeing spectre. But then, family gets its claws into you. His family more than most.

The Cornelius family is hard to get rid of. They live separate to the stream of time. Mrs. Cornelius comes to mind, but Jerry shivers. His mother is not something a sane person wants to dwell on.

 

He much prefers to dwell with his sister, his Catherine, his other half, the light blocking his shadow. Catherine inspires him to poetry, Frank inspires him to swearing.

Jerry clicks his neck once, twice and grins. He pushes at Catherine's sweet, soft body next to him, as he lays down again, and reaches over, stroking the small rise of her belly. He stops. She isn't breathing.

He touches each of her breasts, examining their dead weight, then rearranges her, pulling her loose limbs, folding her until her legs splay a little open, but her delicate hands, with their broken nails, curve coyly over her chest.

 Her frizzy hair is blonde this time, but Jerry suspects that's because neither of them have been concentrating.

She smells like their sweat, and that stale smell both of them developed whenever they stayed in their father's fake château. He makes a note to ask her about pulling on the old get up and staying at the convent for a while.

 

He just can't help his affection for the clergy, and he must admit that pulling on the robes and cross made his heart race a little each time.

He scratches himself a little, admiring the way his sister looks like something other than human. But then, then he thinks about how the day is getting away from them, and goes to the bedside table to retrieve what he needs. And it's not there.

"Oh bugger." He mutters, and scrabbles at the mess next to the bed, trying to find the hypodermic full of the poisonous potion Frank had gotten her hooked on this time. He finds it finally by pricking himself on the uncapped end.

 

Smirking a little, he sticks his injured finger into his mouth, and gently, gently, pushes the needle into Catherine's firm, white left buttock.

"Forgive me, dearheart," he sniggers and kisses the mark. Almost immediately, Catherine starts to breath again, though her body maintains it's strange, abnormal mutability. He frowns a little at that.

She opens her wide brown eyes and gazes up at him, without any recognition.

 

"Oh fuck," he says succinctly, and she sinks back down into the pillows. Amnesia. Again.

"The old family curse, hey Cath?" He says cheerfully, as he moves around the bed, pulling on his ever present uniform, black flares, button up shirt, elastic sided boots and the carcoat. He grins, seeing that the vibragun is still stuck in the shoulder holster he had Shakey Mo sew in.

Catherine is malleable, like a doll, and not that he doesn't love that, but he wanted her to be operational, and really, this isn't his area.

He considers calling Miss Brunner, if only for the amusement it would cause, but decides to ring Una Persson, who may be back from her latest pet revolution.

 As the phone rings, Jerry catches sight of his own pale face in the mirror, dark eyes, lank hair and a stupid sardonic smirk. He leans forward and licks his reflection.

 

"It's a tasty world," Jerry  says out loud, and listens to the telephone ring out, watching his beautiful sister stare at the ceiling.

 

Catherine rolls over, once again caught and drugged, and Jerry smiles. Nature calls, and he is always rescuing Catherine, loving her dead body, watching her be born, be dead, and watching Una kiss Catherine is almost too much to handle.

But he and Catherine are too similar to stand together. Everyone knows that. And through Una he loves Catherine, through Catherine he loves Una. Their love was an oroborus, sick and encircling, ever strong, unbreakable through time.

As strong as that love is, the baby still died. No matter how much time he retreads their son is still dead. He is never sure if that is a good thing.

 

Sometimes he thinks the nameless little Cornelius is watching him watching it die. He's only killed it once. And once again when his mother asked him.

 

And then a second later, a year later, here's Jerry, in the old costume, black car coat still stained with unmentionable substances, needle gun at the ready. His lank blond hair falls limply onto his shoulders, his dark eyes glitter with charm and malice, and pulling on this old face is like coming home.

 

Home is not that dank little basement, home is not what he needs it to be. No matter how many times he moves on, how many times Catherine is killed, he is pulled back into that stinking pit in England. If he didn't love London, he would destroy it.

Miss Brunner would enjoy that, but then again she always did. But Miss Brunner reminds him of Catherine again, and this is no time for useless nostalgia. He has business to attend to.

 

"No time, old boy! Get you gone, and we'll say fare thee well!" Says a menacing black clad figure, in cheerfully broken English, learnt from BBC productions. Jerry has learnt not to pay much attention to details that can't matter. The car door slams behind him. He knows what to do.

He gets out of the car and kills the first three people who walk past. Their deaths are meaningless, but at the same time, they change everything, as they shake themselves to pieces on the pavement. He is always drinking up the vibrations of the fallen bodies he makes.

 

When the target smiles at him, so very beautiful, he laughs, and is a little surprised to find tears. Tears were something he thought he’d grown out of, especially in the face of a job well done. Silver glints as he kisses the forehead of the fallen Jesuit. He had always had a weakness for religion. He had forgotten how much it burnt when someone he loved died.

 

It still can’t change the future. His son is still dead. Catherine is drugged. Frank is high. A circle, a circle that he can't break, that doesn't break. Circles, spirals keep him alive. Well that, and morphine. Blood trickles from the new needle puncture in the crook of his left elbow.

Jerry smiles a silver smile.

 

"Life is a funny old thing," says some faceless publican, and Jerry, in his best secretarial drag giggles. Red ringlets spill out of their carefully coiffed style, and Jerry lets the man sitting next to him get a flash of a garter, hugging his thigh. He always made a pretty girl. Except when it wasn't right.Eeven then, he was beautiful in rags. This body would lovely with Catherine. Jerry makes a mental note to lick his sister when he finds her again. If he remembers.

 

"A drink for the lady!" Declares a hearty voiced American, who pushes a hand high up onto Jerry's thigh. Target acquired, thinks Jerry and leans into the man's hand. Cosmetic magic was easy enough to do... and the American's smile widens as his fingertips brush the lips of Jerry's pussy.

He never wears underwear as a woman. It seems pointless.

As they leave the pub, Jerry ignores the knowing glint in Shakey Mo Collier's eyes. He needs this connection now. Even drugs just aren't hitting the spot anymore.

 

Halfway to the door of the American's flat, kissing him, running fingers though his lush chest hair, Jerry hears a shrill, shrieking squall that puts the fear into him.

 

"Bugger me," He growls as Frank comes staggering up, covered in filth.

"Wotcha, Jerr. Oy, ain’t you copped off with something decent?" Frank leers and the scent of the man, the grease in his glare makes Jerry's facade crack. He kills the American then and there, beyond angry.

"Haven't you got some place to crawl up into and die, Frank?" He snarls, but lets Frank rob the body.

"Seeya, Jerr." Frank oozes away but not before the accidental touch of his fingers against Jerry's breast makes Jerry feel ill.

"Oh yeah, Jerry! Catherine sends her love!"  Frank calls back, hoping to upset his brother, but Jerry laughs, startling him enough so that the grimy man trips over his own feet.

Jerry leaves the scene to the sound of Frank's cursing.

 

Jerry Cornelius is the English Assassin. He is lying in wait for the next hit, he is lying in bed with his fingers curled around Catherine's right nipple, as pink as, as sweet as a fresh strawberry, he is lying in a ditch without memory. Again.

 

Memory blurs and fades, and pale Pierrot smiles. A silver ribbon glints when cold Columbine dances for him.


End file.
